We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Sierra Georgitsis. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Sierra below.

Hi Sierra, thanks for joining us today. What’s been one of the most interesting investments you’ve made – and did you win or lose? (Note, these responses are only intended as entertainment and shouldn’t be construed as investment advice)

The best investment I’ve made was an online course for search engine optimization. Before I launched my food blog, I brainstormed lots of creative ideas and strategies to grow my page and monetize it. I decided to launch a website which would be the main hub for my recipes and eventually become a consistent source of income.

After researching ways to make this happen, I discovered that I needed to partner with an advertising service which would run ads on my website. In order to do this, you need a large number of website traffic per month. So my primary focus was figuring out how to grow my website traffic.

And a major way to drive traffic to a website is through keyword optimization. Keyword optimization is essentially a strategic way to write a blog post so that it’s optimal for Google results. Meaning that if done correctly your blog posts will show on the 1st page of the Google results when people are searching for something related to your blog topic.

This sounded achievable but I had no idea where to start and no previous experience with SEO. I did my own research, watched YouTube videos and then stumbled upon a Facebook forum where many other food bloggers had taken an SEO course that they swore by. At the time it was a big expense for me to consider since I hadn’t earned a single dollar yet, but I felt that it was an extremely important investment for my business in the long run.

I took the leap and completed the course in about one week. I immediately started applying what I learned and now have over 67 search engine optimized blog posts with many of them earning the number 1 spot in Google search results.

Looking back, I’m so proud of myself for seeing the value in this course from the beginning of my journey. Now I have a website that generates thousands of organic traffic every day and is monetized through display ads. This has allowed me to be a real competitor in the space and is a huge reason for my success.

Sierra, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m a food blogger and content creator in San Diego, CA who specializes in Greek cuisine. I come from a large Greek family of cooks and foodies. I have many memories growing up helping my YiaYia in the kitchen and learning to cook a variety of things from many of my family members. After I graduated college, I worked a corporate job in sales but decided to start a food Instagram page as a fun hobby. I realized that the combination of creating recipes and filming them was a huge passion of mine. I would daydream about a life as a creative in the space but never really considered it as a possibility. Then during the pandemic, I was put in the position to consider a career change and decide what I really wanted to do moving forward. I started taking my social media pages more seriously and posting my recipes on a frequent basis. These videos had some success and gave me the encouragement to keep it up and consider this as a real career possibility. By 2022, I launched my website and took the leap as a fulltime content creator. Since then, I’ve grown my pages to over half a million followers and been able to monetize my work. I’m so grateful to get to work on my passion, partner with large brands, attend industry events and make connections with others in the space. This is truly my passion and where I belong. I’m so thankful for the journey and what I’ve been able to achieve this far. I would encourage anyone considering a creative career or entrepreneurial journey to take the leap of faith and don’t wait.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The most rewarding part of being a creative is when it resonates with my audience. I put so much time and effort into developing quality recipes, filming them, editing them and then posting them so others can easily access and make the recipe for themselves. So, when I receive positive feedback from my community about how they enjoyed the recipe or their kids are picky eaters, but they loved it, it just brings me so much joy. I truly appreciate when I get direct messages from my audience thanking me for helping them learn to cook or that their family loves all of my recipes and this truly gives me purpose and a drive to continue doing what I do.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

The best way others can support creatives is by genuinely rooting for them in whatever capacity makes sense. For me, my close friends and family have always engaged with my content by liking it and leaving positive comments showing that they support what I’m doing. I pass this along to other creators by leaving constant positive comments on their posts to help boost their content and remind them that people are rooting for them. There are so many negative people on the internet that want to tear others down and it’s a vulnerable place to be as a creator. So, by taking a few seconds to leave positive feedback and give them love truly makes all the difference. It’s an easy but major way to support someone in the creative space.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://spoonfulofsi.com/
• Instagram: spoonfulofsi
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100093005583738
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@spoonfulofsi
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@spoonfulofsi?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc